銀河 ginga=silver river

I put another layer into this painting today.

The Japanese word for galaxy is “ginga” (銀河) which means, “silver river.” Awesome, right? We live in a silver river, a flowing mirror. The Milky Way in Japanese is "Amanogawa" (天の川), heaven's river. So cool. Maybe I should call this painting one of those.

Some of you might have noticed that there are two different Japanese characters meaning "river": 河 and　川。The former looks like it has a mouth and dam inside; the water coming in from the left, see it? feeding the mouth. Japanese characters are always tiny pictures, you know, beautifully composed in a square format, each one. Reading a page of these tiny pictures can be like visiting a modern art museum. And they are a great fun to write.